Kontera: In-Text Ads

[Updated 1/5/2009]

Although the most popular, Google AdSense is not the only player in the pay-per-click advertising marketplace. Kontera entered this market in 2003 with its flagship product ContentLink that places ads right in the published content. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by famous VC's including Sequoia Capital.

Kontera uses its proprietary patent-pending technology to analyze the published content in real-time in order to find the best matched ads. Once found, the ads are placed at the highlighted key words or phrases, called ContentLinks. When placing the mouse over a ContentLink, the reader sees an ad appearing in a small talk-bubble window. Clicking on the ad takes the reader to the advertiser's site.

I have included an excerpt below from Kontera that explains how the contextual analysis engine works:

• Extraction: A typical analysis process begins by extracting all the relevant page content and attributes, including: text, HTML properties, location on page, URL, Title, Meta tags, custom Meta tags, etc. Every such attribute conveys a specific weight to the algorithms that analyzes the data.
• Discovery: The extracted data is then scanned through the discovery process in relationship to the proprietary taxonomy and via a dynamic part-of-speech analysis to identify keyword relationships and significance.
• Classification: The page and its best matching keywords are classified with their best matching topics, and both keywords and topics are scored for relevancy.
• Ranking: The resulting output of keywords and topics are then ranked, based not only on keyword and topic relevancy but on other parameters as well. These parameters include: topic and keyword conversion rate and click-through rate, advertisement CTR, advertisement conversion and revenue potential.
• Self-Learning Optimization: The self-learning and tuning module automatically performs yield management and optimization. This process is based on real-time analysis of user reactions to specific keywords, topics, and ads as they relate to specific web pages and topics. In Text Ad impressions are then re-distributed in order to assign more impressions to the keywords that are performing better. This self-learning stage completes the cycle of Kontera´s contextual advertising technology granting it its unique competitive edge.

Kontera believes that the so-called "in-line advertising" performs better than ads by Google which are placed in confined areas of the page predetermined by publisher. Kontera ContentLink works along side with Google AdSense, so is an additional income stream to me. How it would effect my AdSense revenue is unknown at this moment. Some surfers report that in-text ads are intrusive and annoying in terms of readers' experience. If you feel that way, please leave me a comment.

How to apply?
To apply for your Kontera publisher account, fill up its application form. To qualify, the publisher used to be asked to have more than 500,000 page impressions per month. The bar was set so high that I am afraid most of the sites would not be able to meet. Luckily, they have adjusted their requirements. I am thrilled to announce that Project BKO at its early stage at the moment is accepted as a Kontera publisher.

How to set up?
Setting up Kontera ContentLink is as simple as copying the JavaScript text from your Kontera account and pasting it in your web pages. To get the JavaScript text, login your account and click on the Get Tag link or the ContentLink Setup tab. You can customize the ContentLink color to match your blog page. If you use Blogger, WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal for hosting your content, it would take just a couple of clicks. Kontera handles the rest for you. Happy earning!

Other in-text ad media companies
In addition to Kontera, there are other companies in the ad media industry. I have not tried any of them. If you have, please share your experience with me.

Vibrant Media
Vibrant Media is the leader of in-text advertising and a premier provider of contextual video advertising, giving marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted, user-initiated advertisements within the text of Web content. The company works closely with advertisers, agencies and Web publishers to plan, buy, deliver and optimize in-text advertising campaigns. Utilizing superior technology and international distribution, Vibrant Media reaches more than 70 million unique users per month in ten different languages, managing more than four billion words per month for top advertisers such as Sony, Intel, New Line Cinema, Microsoft and Toyota. The company was founded in 2000 and has offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Paris and Hamburg with more than 150 employees. The company's rapid, profitable growth has been recognized by both the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 lists.

AdBrite
AdBrite was founded by Philip Kaplan and Gidon Wise in 2002, is headquartered in San Francisco, California and backed by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, and Mitsui Ventures. For more information, read my post about online advertising with AdBrite.